About Flo Boudoc

Posts by Flo Boudoc:

Louis Lagayette is a writer / director whose 2015 script ‘Trendy’, was one of three winners in the BUFF Live Script Reading competition, performed at Channel 4. He also received a Live Script Award for Trendy which then became a feature film, released in September 2017. Here is his blog (unpublished until now).

The Virtues of Buffness (or how I gained confidence and felt I had to keep making films).

Three years ago I embarked on a fascinating journey that many have taken before me:

directing a first feature film. Impossible for a French man who had come to the UK four years ago to study film? Time would tell.

Back then, I didn’t know many people in the film industry. I knew my producer and partner in crime Marilena Parouti. My close collaborators on set, like cinematographer Richard William Preisner and gaffer Ben Skyrme. And I had a few mentors and writing sparring partners who I would occasionally get inspiration and support from.

In November 2014 I was promoting my graduation short film: For His Sake. So far I had made about 10 shorts films but this one felt different. It felt like for once, I had achieved something. The film was selected at the BAFTA-qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

I was lucky enough that the film was screened in front of a massive audience and I could talk about it with a panel of other filmmakers. On that night I met Emmanuel and Clare Anyiam-Osigwe: the amazing people at the heart of the British Urban Film Festival (BUFF), which would later prove to be a decisive step in my career.

On that night Emmanuel and Clare came to me at the end of the screening to tell me how much they had loved my short film. To my surprise, they thought it

was worth something. After telling me all the things they loved about the film, they made me promise to submit it to the next BUFF, which I did.

Time passed and For His Sake went to a few more festivals around the UK. I started to direct music videos and I continued my journey throughout the attempt to get a first feature film off the ground. My producer and I were taking the standard route. Rejections, doubts, frustrations, mistakes and doors closing on you. Yet we kept pushing and pushing – to the dismay of all our friends who thought we were absolutely mad – and made small progress.

And one day we received an email from BUFF. Our short film For His Sake was selected in competition! I asked Emmanuel to go for coffee and we met. He had a large smile on his face – a smile anyone who’s ever met him knows because it’s the sort of smile that you can’t help but catch. He seemed happier than me. He was excited to show the film to the BUFF audience and told me how great it would be to present it. I got excited too. I started to be infected by what would later be known to me as “Buffness”.

Then Emmanuel asked me what I was up to. I replied that I had started to make music videos and that I was writing my first feature film – called Trendy.

Another smile appeared on his face. The same sort of smile. And Emmanuel told me that there was a new competition at this year’s BUFF. A script competition. Hundreds of script submitted and judged by professional BAFTA-winning writers and a script reading at Channel 4 for the winners. The same contagious smile appeared on my face. I promised him that I would submit my script and we parted.

The feature film journey continued. Between music videos and writing sessions, my producer and I were applying to every single funding scheme there was. We were contacting other producers, financiers. We were trying to imagine new ways of financing the film and luckily we got a co-producer on board. Unfortunately adding more matches to a pile of wet leaves doesn’t start a fire. We kept grafting. Until one day – we had another email. Our script was selected at BUFF! We had won the screenwriting award and the first twenty pages of the script would be read by professional actors at Channel 4! We couldn’t believe it. We had our short film selected and our feature film script awarded.

Then the festival happened. We couldn’t dream of a better set-up. Great actors directed by talented director Julius Amedume performed the script in front of an enthusiastic audience, then the screening of For His Sake was rammed and people loved the film. To seal the deal we were awarded the Live Script-reading Award by BAFTA-winning screenwriters Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith. And when we looked around at the winners and the other competing filmmakers, we realised we were exactly like them. Young, passionate, eager to prove ourselves and to work hard. The Buffness at its best. Our work was valued. We were considered. Of course our short film and our feature film script weren’t perfect. Of course we needed to work way harder to achieve our dreams. Of course we were still inexperienced filmmakers learning their craft.

But we were considered. We were supported. We experienced Buffness. Because that’s what BUFF is about. It’s about supporting aspiring filmmakers to turn them into talents. It’s about giving a spot to people who don’t usually get one, or to people who never got one before. There are always new faces at BUFF. Always new people and new inspirations. New ideas and new concepts. The family has core members but it’s the sort of family that welcomes all its neighbours to the party. The doors are never closed.

After BUFF we went back to work. It was still as hard and it took us a long time to get anywhere, although now we had the Buffness behind us. So we kept trying and failing, but not much could stop us anymore. And eventually actors became interested in our film. Alan Ford joined our cast. Then Haluk Bilginer. Then Lachlan Nieboer. Then Alice Sanders. Then Fraser Ayres. Then we found the funding for our film. The crew. The locations.

And we made our first feature film: Trendy.

I believe a large part of our journey was encouraged by Buffness. The film is to be released soon and we still have obstacles on the way, but since we were infected by the BUFF virus, it seems even our hardest defeats are bearable. Even our biggest doubts transform into strength and turn into skills.

BUFF is an incredible event that truly gives a voice to anyone willing to work hard for it. Not only does it champion diversity, it also praises filmmakers and nurtures talents. Honestly and ambitiously.

JamesWebber is a writer / director whose 2012 short film ‘Driftwood’, a sporting drama featuring Sam Gittins (Ripper Street) and Neil Maskell (Kill List), received the British Urban Film Festival Best Short Award (across the 10 year history of the festival) in 2015. Here is his blog (unpublished until now).

Making your film is really only half the battle. Once a project is complete, it’s all about finding an audience and film festivals are, of course, an integral part of this.

Over the last few years, fuelled by the ease of online screeners and new submissions services such as Film Freeway, there has never been more of a choice when it comes to film festivals. However, this is not necessarily a good thing. Having done the festival run on many of my short films, you inevitably end up being accepted into a few duds. The kind of festivals that put no effort into marketing themselves or finding audiences for their screenings, that still screen from DVD’s or put no thought into projection or presentation of the submitted material. Luckily though, for the majority of festivals this is not the case.

When you have put a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears (and then more blood!) into your film, festival screenings must match the amount of passion you, and your team, share for your own project (and not just look at making a quick buck from submission fees).

During the festival run for my short film Driftwood, we were lucky enough to screen at over 50 festivals worldwide including large overseas festivals and smaller regional festivals, you name it, we probably screened there. But our experience with BUFF will certainly remain one of my fondest memories. The screening was well attended and Driftwood was shown alongside some strong films which, although all different, complimented each other perfectly. It was great to meet many of the filmmakers and some audience members afterwards and discuss the films screened.

Skip forward a few years, when I found out the film had been nominated for Best British Short in the 10 year history of the festival I was truly honoured to be considered. When Driftwood then went on to win the prize I was borderline speechless (anyone who knows me well will know this is an incredibly rare event). Especially as the other films nominated were fantastic shorts such as Jane Gull’s film ‘Sunny Boy’. It was a great evening and a true celebration of British filmmaking.

Often a good test of whether a festival is doing the right job is to examine the time before and after your film is shown on the big screen. There was significant press leading up to the day of the event, including a radio interview (which was more than a little nerve wracking!). On the backend, our screening at BUFF ultimately led to Channel 4 (who supported the festival that year) getting in touch to enquire about screening it as part of their short film programme the Shooting Gallery (once again alongside the amazing ‘Sunny Boy’) which was a fantastic opportunity. Very rarely do the main TV stations in the UK show shorts, so to be included was a honour and certainly a big moment in my growing career as a filmmaker, as it opened the film up to an even bigger audience.

The team at BUFF and the festival as a whole has been hugely supportive of me and the other filmmakers that have been screened there over the years. They have a real passion to help storytellers get their material seen by the public.

I think making any film, be it short or feature, is a journey and my experience at BUFF was easily one of the highlights. Roll on the next festival!

Jesse Quinones is a writer / director whose 2013 movie ‘Calloused Hands’, a coming-of-age drama featuring Andre Royo (The Wire) and Daisy Haggard, won the British Urban Film Festival Best Feature and best director Award (across the 10 year history of the festival) in 2015. Here is his blog (unpublished until now).

BUFF has impacted my work as a filmmaker in so many ways. In 2013 I made my debut feature film Calloused Hands. It was a loosely based on my life. The film, from idea all the way down to completion, took me 13 years to make. Anyone out there that has ever made a film knows that it is really hard to get a movie made. Even a bad one. But even harder than that is getting it seen. We made Calloused Hands on a micro budget but still managed to pull together a really‚ strong cast, which was led by the incomparable Andre Royo. With the film finished the big question was: where to screen it?

For us, BUFF was the no brainer. They offered us an incredible platform. A 500 seat Odeon cinema. Press. Exposure. And two years later the honour of being selected as the Best Feature Film and Best Director. For a‚ small little film about a kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks I can think of no better place to show this film. I didn’t have it smooth sailing growing up. But one of the things I am most proud of is no one came in and told my story. I armed myself with an education, with skill, and I told my own story. And BUFF then gave me the best platform to tell that story. And for this I am forever grateful.

Since then, I have established a lifestyle that I never imagined was possible. I have my next feature film in development, TV projects in the pipeline, and when I am not developing my own work I lecture at the very fine film school Met Film School working with the next crop of exciting filmmakers. I owe a lot to BUFF for opening that first door for me.

Isis Davis is a writer / director /actress whose 2016 performance in short film ‘Cover Me’ won her the best female emerging talent award in 2017. She was also one of 3 winners in the BUFF Live Script Reading competition for which her script “Draw” was performed live at the BT Tower on Colourful Radio, also in 2017. She also received a Live Script Award for ‘Draw’.

Writing a blog; way different to writing a script. Everyone has their own blogging style, now that’s a similarity as all script writers have their own style but what is different is that this is me, from me, about me, and with no questions, just general guidance. So I am told people want to know about my journey to BUFF, my involvement, my association, its role in my journey, the Awards I have won and the aftermath.. so here you have it. My BUFF story so far….

My agent called me and told me that she had an audition for me; that the role could have been written for me.That usually means it’s either ghetto, gangster or vulnerable and tragic.That sounds so depressing doesn’t it, but for me, having a life story that included each of those elements, I consider it a blessing to be able to use the tough life experiences I have lived and survived to bring to life different characters with genuine depth and emotion and a true understanding or way of relating to the character, not just acting out the lines.Like many roles I’ve played, this role enabled me to draw on some of my more tragic experiences, but please don’t think that what happened to this character ACTUALLY happened to me, if you watch Cover Me, remember this; my Dad in real life is my hero….! So, I auditioned for the central role in Cover Me, written and Directed by Jo Southwell; I got the part and we shot it. It is a monologue lead short film and the subject matter is pretty hard hitting. Filming was intense as I spent it mostly alone to enable me to stay in character and keep the depth of emotion it warranted.

Over a year later, Jo contacted my agent to let me us know that the film had been chosen to be shown as part of the 2016 BUFF Short Film screening at The Odeon, Camden. We were thrilled, it had passed the Granola Test. For those of you that don’t know what the Granola Test is, you will simply have to submit to BUFF to find out!! Armed with a friendly and supportive entourage of family and my professional team mate, Agent Nina Lee, we attended the screening of around 10 short films along with questions and presentations.It was a great evening and the talent amongst the Festival was incredible.That night Emmanuel asked me to attend a few radio interviews with him and some other artists involved in the festival and I built a great rapport with Emmanuel from then on. It was a great networking opportunity in itself and I made some great contacts and some new friends too which is always a bonus along any professional journey.

Emmanuel and I kept in touch, and Nina kept him up to date with all my professional movements.

As a writer, I decided to submit one of my scripts, to be in the mix for the Script Writing Award.The 20 pages you are permitted to submit were taken from my debut four part Drama Series which has seen interest from Channel 4 and Tiger Aspect. But how do you choose 20 pages? Eventually I did and submitted them, and waited.

Then came announcement day… I HAD been nominated for the Best Female Emerging Talent Award AND I had WON one of the three script writing awards. Incredible!I looked forward to the awards ceremony and being able to collect my award knowing that I’d be sharing the stage with some incredible talent, including Ashley Walters who collected his Honorary Award that evening and Femi Oyeniran who I was hoping would be collecting an award for The Intent (which he did!). In the days prior to the Award Ceremony, we had a Live Script Read Through which saw me cast my script and enjoy it coming off the page for the very first time; it was also a great opportunity for my Literary Agent and one of the Developmental scouts at Tiger Aspect to see it off the page too – such a great platform for me on so many levels.Two of the cast members were people I had seen at the Festival in various platforms the previous year (networking again, see what BUFF provides!!) and the rest from people I already knew, or had been recommended.I also attended various other events that the Festival offered and really immersed myself in Urban Film for the two weeks the festival ran.

The night of the Award ceremony was absolutely brilliant. I was so proud to collect my Script Writing Award and be interviewed afterwards and enjoy that moment of knowing that my hard work was being recognised.When I got back to my seat, the next award to be announced was the Best Female Emerging Talent Award. It was so good to see all four of us nominees displaying such brilliant work that we had been cast in; and then they called my name!AGAIN! I won! I really couldn’t believe it. The category was packed with such a high standard.I was really blown away and totally unprepared in terms of my acceptance moment. I felt emotional, and proud, and it turns out, I was the only person to win two awards… such a big achievement. It’s amazing to have your work recognised amongst industry peers including those you have been following and watching and respect so highly.We celebrated on the 34th floor of the BT Tower at the BUFF Awards After Party.It really was a night to remember.

Since that night, I have enjoyed the support of BUFF via social media including them promoting the series I was recently in on Channel 4.

Last week I received a personal invitation from The Prime Minister to attend Downing Street to celebrate Black History Month.When we enquired as to how the selection process takes place, they said that people of recognised contribution are recommended from various departments throughout Whitehall. I couldn’t think how they would know who I am, let alone know of my work or achievements but I suddenly wondered whether my recent awards from The British Urban Film Festival had had an impact; my Agent enquired with Clare Anyiam-Osigwe, BUFF board member and wife of founder Emmanuel, and she said that there was a good chance that it had indeed had an impact, as they are in close talks with certain government members in terms of the achievements they are supporting and celebrating, and that my name had been mentioned as the only person to win two awards as part of the Festival.

So there it is; the connections and opportunities and platforms that BUFF provide go far wider and deeper than people may imagine or notice on the surface, but their drive and passion for developing and promoting and supporting the Urban Film network is second to none, and I am proud to be fully invested in what BUFF offers, year after year. This year will be my third year associated with the Festival so let’s see to what capacity that lends itself.So far I haven’t submitted anything, and I am not acting in any of the films submitted as of yet, but there is still time. One thing is for certain, I will definitely be at the events held throughout the festival. It’s a fortnight to indulge, enjoy and immerse oneself in, and I shall be doing just that!

I would just like to take this opportunity once again to thank Emmanuel and everyone involved with BUFF for your continued support and the platform to showcase my work as an actress and writer.